Girls with Bigguns!

I was going to give a couple of girls a guided tour around the local roads the other day but another couple of tourists came along and wanted to rent a bike at the same time.
I didnt want to waste the early part of the day since it rains every afternoon here and on this particular day, it was already quite cloudy so I knew the rain would be earlier than usual.
Anyway, I sent the two girls off on a bike to an easy to get to view point for about a half hour, while I dealt with the other tourists.

As expected, it took me about twenty minutes to get the other renters on their way and then I headed up the hill on another bike to find the girls and start the tour.
The road I had sent them up goes to a neighbouring town about 20Km away but I always tell people to not go beyond 12Km because there are some thieves (with guns) that live out there and they rob people (seriously!).
So, I was riding out along the road and wondering how far the girls had gone... further than I had expected it seemed...
And coming the other way I saw a big black and gold Police pickup truck. Nothing too unusual there but these guys are the federal police (not the local municipal police) and they are all dressed in paramilitary black uniforms and they always carry some really serious looking assault rifles wherever they go (they exude "Black Karma"!). Ive never had any problems with them and I waved as I rode past... and they all had really big smiles and waved back...hmmm thats a bit unusual...but nice :)

And then about two minutes later I met the girls coming back on the bike. We stopped and I soon discovered that they had attracted the attention of the police and that they had been stopped and "interogated"!...

And this is what it looked like...

Clearly there are some advantages to being a white skinned femal on a motorbike down here !

And a good time was had by all :)))

An Old Friend.

They have "Redback Spiders" here in Guate´!



There was a really nice big one sitting on my window frame here this morning.
They are all over the place in Australia. There are some similar spiders in North America but the only ones I have seen are the Black Widows in the desert country, and they only have the red "hourglass" marking on their underside.
But the one on my window this morning had a nice red stripe on its tail and it was big and shiny black, and it reminded me off Australia :)))

Yes they are potentially deadly.
No I didnt kill it, it wasnt looking for me and it wasnt doing anything wrong.
If the spider had been anywhere near where I sleep or sit then Id have tried to move her outside, but as it is, Im happy to live nearby and we can share the space... maybe she will help reduce the current fly problem we are having :))

Tic tic tic....BOOM

Im still having issues with my bank :))
The following is a copy of the email I just sent to my bank!
Why do I share it?....Because its whats going on with me at present :)


Subject: Enough is Enough!

Lisa:
Please read through, there are specific instructions for you at the end of this email.

Ron:
Rightly or wrongly, as the customer service rep' on this issue, you get the brunt of this...

Well, the problem at my end has gone away!

The land owner whom I had deposited money with has returned my money and, I believe, sold his land to someone else (clearly someone working with a bank other than mine) because I couldnt provide the remainder of the money in time...

Ron, you/my bank have made me look like a liar as far as the people in my local community are concerned...THANKYOU VERY MUCH!

I now have a stack of Guatemalan currency here in Guate´, and a Visa card debt there in Canada and I am absolutely not going through all the hastle to take the double exchange rate hits and international transfer fees to return the money to Canada.
I am also completely unable to proceed and I have had to back away from another large financial commitment (land/business purchase) that I was very much hoping to complete...lest I embarrass myself further! I am pretty sure that they will not want to talk with me again.

It has now been four or five months (depending on when you start counting) that I have been trying to get this LoC to happen!
I absolutely defy you to justify to me why it is that I am still waiting!
I have been as patient as I know how. I have pushed this issue with you/my bank as often as possible and I have done everything I could do to help the process as soon as I could. Sadly, I do not believe that the same can honestly be said for your/my banks actions in return.

I have now had enough...
No, you do not have my permission to open yet another account with the bank in my name as a stopgap measure to deal with your/my banks incompetence!
I am pretty sure I will be reducing the number of accounts that I have at TD in the near future rather than increasing them!Ron, You are hereby dismissed as far as working on any of my banking!


Lisa,
Please provide me with name and direct contact information for Ron´s manager...
Phone number and Email and available hours for contact...ASAP
Please provide me with an alternate mortgage manager and full contact details ASAP.
Please provide the new mortgage manager with the full history of my situation.
Please continue with finalizing whatever remains to be done on the LoC that has been initiated. Lets see if TD can actually get it done shall we?
If you can not comply then please advise me ASAP.

All,
I have a hard time describing the FURY that I currently feel.
I have been trying so very hard not to go down this path but it seems that I now must...
I will be coming back to Vancouver in early to mid July!
When I get there, I GUARANTEE I will be coming in to the bank to "SORT THINGS OUT"!
Make no mistake.... I KEEP MY WORD!
I realize that this is incredibly short notice (a mere 6-8 weeks!) for you there at the bank but I hope that there will be enough time for you to consider the situation... I will leave it to you all to ponder over what you may (or may not) want to do to rectify or assuage the disservice that I feel the bank has done for me!

Sincerely

Grant Else

Plagues!

We seem to be having a bout of assorted plagues here!
I dont think its of "biblical proportions" but its definitely noticeable by everyone!

The rains are well and truly happening down here now (its summer which means its hot and wet).
We get rain in the afternoon at about 2pm every day. The mornings are lovely though, so life is still quite pleasant... But, mother nature is responding to the rain and we are currently experiencing three local plagues:
First we got the frogs... They are everywhere...largish and dull brown. If you see movement on the path at night or in the grass then its almost guaranteed to be a frog. These are not so bad since they dont bite and they cant climb the walls or get under the doors, so they stay outside... quite benign.

Then there are the crabs... yep, the lake here has descent sized freshwater crabs. And it seems that at this time of year they come up onto the land and pursue some of their biological urges...Not sure what those urges are, but there are quite a few 15cm across crabs wandering around the town. They are not quite as benign as the frogs cos they do have nippers and they know how to use them! The disappointment is that the ones out on the land apparently dont have a nice flavor!... But they are actually a bit too small to be worth the effort to cook and eat for me so no great loss there. Like the frogs, they cant get under the doors so they stay outside :)))

And then there are the flys! The locals call them "moskos" but whatever you call them they are a plague for sure. There are "bazillions" of them . They are small bush flies and they remind me of being in the country in Australia at the wrong time of year. Those of you who are Australians or who have spent some time there in the country will know what I mean....very annoying! Unfortunately these guys can get under your door ...or through any small gap for that matter...Its a real problem for the local restaurants and cafes... The food has to be kept very well protected... Though it usually isnt!


And the final Plague is the local Municipal government!
They have decided to apply an arbitrary tax on all the businesses... I say all, but in reality they just want to tax the expat' businesses. There is even a line in the papers that they are "serving" that states this is targeted at the "extrageneros" because they only take and give nothing back to the community! And so the tax is about five times as large for expat businesses.
Another disappointing reality is that the papers are only being served to expat businesses and the local business owners will not have to pay a cent!
Yep, I (actually everybody I speak to) believe that this is wholly unconstitutional and is just the local government on a money grab. This has happened in the past but has been a much lower sum of money, so people have just paid up and moved on. This time however, people feel they are getting greedy...
The good thing here is that the greed is likely high enough to cause the expat' business owners to band together and reject it and get lawyers involved...
We shall see what happens next!

Another aspect of it is that I currently dont have a business license for the motorbike rentals.
It has been an experiment till now and I have learned lots and not committed too much...but now is the time when I need to "get real" (it was always going to happen, so I dont really mind) so I am now getting things in order with a lawyer etc to set up all the needed paperwork. It will likely cost a bit and since I dont yet have residency I will have to get a local to be the" business owner" and I´ll technically be the employee... But Ill manage the business and provide all the equipment and get 90% of the profit - Coincidentaly, this corresponds exactly with the 10% that I currently pay the hotel where the bikes are stored! :)))

So the plagues are upon us, but life goes on just fine :)

TookTooks

The tooktooks around here are , as far as I can tell, exactly the same as the ones all over India and all through SouthEast Asia, and though its been a very long time since I was there, I think they are the same as the ones in East Africa. Tough little critters!

It appears that the tooktook has reached its peak, and more or less ceased to evolve!
This is much like the modern sharks of the world today...They are different species than the ones paleontologists dig up, but the overall design is very much the same. It seems that nature has little more to contribute to their design...They have been thoroughly tested by evolution, and they are as good as they can get.

And when did their design become stable and stop evolving?
Well, its certainly not clear but it was a long time ago. It came as no surprise to many that in amongst the hieroglyphics of the ancient Egyptian/Nubian empires, unambiguous images of tooktooks have been found. And further analysis of some of the damaged and only partially recoverable diagrams discovered at the same site show what appear to be gear ratios and clutch mechanism designs for them!

Clearly the tooktooks were fully evolved from this time. It is my personal opinion that the tooktooks were first domesticated by the "Atlantean" civilization that scholars are only now starting to acknowledge did truly exist and was quite advanced.
I suspect that the original wild tooktooks were native to the North Africa region and grazed over the vast plains of the Sahara (when the climate was less server than it is now). This is however just speculation because all traces of the original native tooktooks has been erased by the passing eons . The wild tooktooks were ultimately driven to extinction by human hunting (for use as spare parts for the domesticated tooktooks!) and the fact that the domesticated variety is very rapacious and packs of ferrel domestic tooktooks were able to outcompeted the native variety even on the savanahs.

The modern tooktook has, as I said, effectively stopped evolving. This is largely because, like the dandelion, they have stopped reproducing sexually. They now reproduce asexually (I believe it happens very quietly at night in garages and repair shops throughout there habitable range) and thus the opportunity for genetic diversity, and thus natural selection, is minimized.

But, the story does not stop there...
Man in our infinite wisdom feels that we can improve on nature and now with the advent of genetic engineering and gene splicing with the aid of viruses, there are some new genetically modified tooktooks!
They are a bit larger and the power source has been altered to be a single cylinder diesel engine rather than the standard gasoline engine. They are far noisier than the natural version but at this stage they do appear to have at least found their own niche in the tooktooks biotope.
It is also unlikely that we will get to see if they would eventually displace the natural version or be replaced them selves if nature were allowed to take its course...man has started interfering and we can be quite sure that man will continue to interfere as deemed fit (such is our Hubris!).

I dont know what will happen next in the future of the tooktooks, but I am pretty sure that when all is said and done, they will look more or less the same as they do now!

A Week in One Day

Today was insanely busy in the motorbike rental world :)

It went like this...

8:00am - I rented the two small bikes to a couple of guys for a half day.
8:30am - I got my stuff together to head over the lake on boat to do some banking.
8:45am - Im about to get on the boat when I get a call from the guys on the bikes ...
One of the bikes wont go into gear ...It was low on clutch and a quick question confirms
that yes, it was while trying to go up a very steep hill ...OK thats what it is...
Solution is to swap out the bike for the bigger one I still have.
9:00am - Im on my bigger bike and headed around the lake to find them...
It takes me about 45min to locate them...They were on a short side road I had never
been down.
10:00am - Im teaching one of them to ride the bigger bike...he seems OK, so I start walking
back to San Pedro to get a pickup to bring the dead bike back.
10:10am - I get a call saying there is someone else wanting to rent my little scooter.
10:15am - I flag down a tooktook and pay to get a ride back to town (20 minutes instead of
an hour or more if I walk)
10:40am - I rent out the little scooter and give them the chat on where they can go etc.
11:00am - I walk up the hill into town and find a guy with a pickup to come get the dead bike.
11:45am - Me and the driver lift the dead bike into his truck and head back to town.
12:30am - I unload the bike and wheel it to the workshop - Though Indy is not in town at the
moment so Ill have to do the repair without help.
1:00pm - Ive taken off the side of the motor and the exhaust and the foot pegs etc.
Ive unbolted all sorts of stuff inside the engine to get the clutch pack off.
(Im pretty organized but Im just hoping I remember how it all goes back together)
1:30pm - The two guys who rented come back and I get paid (for one bike only though since
the other had problems)
1:45pm - I walk over to the local parts dealer and am relieved to find they do have the clutch plates I need.
I buy them and walk back.
2:00pm - I get another call saying there are guys who want to rent the two bikes.
I go over and rent the two bikes out for an hour - give them a chat and take passports.
2:30pm - I get back to the sick bike and start reassembling it.
3:00pm - Another call and the guy on the scooter is back early - avoiding the rain.
I go get paid some more and give him back his passport.
3:15pm - I get back to assembling the sick bike.
3:30pm - Another call and the two bikes are back again, so I go get paid some more and
return more passports :)
3:45pm - Before I can even get back to fixing the sick bike, two more people want to rent the
two working bikes. OK, I give them the chat, take passports and send them on
their way.
4:15pm - I get back to the sick bike and finish the assembly. Then I go for a test ride, and
amazingly, it all seems to work just fine :)))
4:45pm - I do a run over to the gas station with my fuel can to get a fill so I can refill the bikes.
5:00pm - I arrive back as the two bikes come back and get paid some more and return more
passports.
5:15pm - Both the last two groups of people who rented the bikes want to rent all three now
working bikes (not the scooter) for tomorrow morning!
I do a little negotiating and convince one group to go the day after by offering a bit of
a discount - I just want them all to be happy :)
5:45pm - I have a rest and an ice cream and try to figure out what happened!!!

Despite the huge number of people renting, I have made a loss today...but not by much!
The clutch replacement was going to happen soon anyway, but the parts costs were Q450 and the tooktook and pickup were another Q75. The fuel for the day cost Q60 and the commission
to the hotel where I keep the bikes was another Q40. So costs were Q625.
Income was 150+120+120+120 = Q510

But!, The committed rentals for the next two days will bring in about Q940 which pays for the full week of my food and lodgings... So thats great :))))
And besides the finances, I had a really fun day running around and solving new problems... And all the customers were very happy and most of them are coming back for another rental..

Very busy but lotsa fun :)))

A week in a Day!

Motorbike Renting Ins and Outs...

So, Ive been renting motorbikes here in SanPedro for the last three months and I thought Id share what Ive learned thus far.

This is what "stuff" I have:
1x 200cc Pegaso (Suzuki) Trail Bike (purchased very nearly new)
2x 125cc Honda CGL125-TP Utility Bikes (purchased new from dealer)
1x 100cc Yamaha BWS Scooter (purchased VERY used!- 2002 model)
3x Helmets - open face, Large size, good quality.
1x Cell Phone
2x Roadside advertising boards
1x Sun Umbrella
2x Plastic chairs
1x 2.5gal fuel container
Several Advertising/Liability/Information documents.

And thats about it.

I have no business license, I have no insurance (yes I have thought about the consequences of this for both me and the clients).
I hold a client passport as security before I let them take the bike - and have not had any problems with this.
I require the client to sign a liability waiver before I rent them a bike.
I give all clients a good verbal description of where they can go and what they should expect of traffic and conditions.
I give all clients a little map of the towns and distances.
I am always available on-call to solve whatever problems they have while out on the bikes (no charge).
..This includes coming and getting them if they get lost, or swapping out a bike with problems... So far this has only meant telling them how to start a bike that wont start over the phone - Put the red switch on the right hand side in the down position and try it again :)

Driving Conditions:
There are only about three roads that people can drive along here. They total only about 50Km in length and are all very tranquil as far as other traffic is concerned. They are however steep and in poor condition. There have been absolutely no serious incidents: Accidents at speed, or involving other people/vehicles etc. I have had about 3-4 people fall off the bikes at very slow speeds in the dirt - which I of course warned them about:) - scraped knee/elbow was the worst of it for the people and very minor scrapes for the bikes - no I didnt charge them for damage :).
I have (just guessing) over 95% of clients return having had a wonderful time (just beaming!) and thats what I aim for.

The Client Base:
San Pedro is probably the second largest tourist town on Lake Attitlan.
Lake Attitlan is one of probably about 4-5 main tourist destinations in Guatemala.
Im just guessing, but I'd say 75% of the tourists are in their twenties and 65% are in the very cheap category.
Tourists stay in the town from anywhere between a day or two and a month.
Most renters seem to be here for a week or two.

Costs of Living for tourists are:
Accommodation: cheap = 30Q per night, expensive = 100Q per night
Food: cheap = 20Q per meal, expensive = 70Q per meal
Drinks: coffee = 6Q, Soft Drink = 4-7Q, Beer = 10-17Q
So, If you live cheap, you can get by on about 100Q per day (8Q=$1US).

Bike Rentals:
For the 125cc bikes, I charge 50Q per hour or 150Q per half day (5 hours).
I charge a bit more for the big bike and a bit less for the scooter.
Fuel and helmets are included at no extra charge and the bikes can carry two people well enough.
...But, on the whole, this still makes motorbike renting quite expensive.
I pay 10% of my rental income to whoever brings in the client, or to the hotel where the bikes are parked for space rental.
Fuel and maintenance costs are about 15% of my income (so far).
About 80% of rentals are for a half day, and thats the the most fun option and best value.
The other 20% rent for one or two hours only, and they are in some sort of a hurry for one reason or another.
About 75% of the rentals are with two people on the bike.
Most rentals seem to travel about 40Km (max 80, min 25)
About 20% of renters use the free helmets.

Experimenting:
1) I have tried larger and smaller bikes:
The larger 200cc bike is definitely popular with the young men...but its also those same young men who work the bikes the hardest and are the most likely to have accidents (once so far). I only rent this bike out to people who I know can ride well...I broke that rule once and the second time the guy rented from me, he fell off and scraped things up!
This bike is too tall for smaller people to easily ride, but it has good power for climbing the steep hills with two people.
Mostly, I use this bike for myself...guiding and running around town etc.
The smaller 125cc bikes are great for most renters. They are small and light and not intimidating. They are not tall and even smaller women can stand over them with both feet on the ground. They carry two people OK and are lots of fun but dont have much spare power and its hard to "get your self into trouble" with them. The only down side is that they are a bit low on power when carrying two people up the steep hills and this means their clutches get a real hard time!
The little scooter is new to the fleet but is already popular. It can carry two people on the flatter roads but not on the steep stuff. It is VERY easy to drive since it is automatic and has no clutch. The down side of this is that the brakes get a real hard time coming down the long hills since the engine cant be used to do the braking - seems unavoidable that either the clutch or the brakes take a hit! The scooter does however open up the option of renting to people who are completely inexperienced or intimidated by bikes...increasing the available market :)
The scooter I got is very old and worn, so I am yet to see what the repair/maintenance issues with it will be...

2) I have tried advertising.
Ive stuck up notices in restaurants and travel agents and Spanish schools and little shops all over town.
Ive put little fliers on restaurant tables. I offer 10% commission to anyone who brings in a client... But in truth, none of it seems to make a difference! Only about 1 in 20 clients comes from these sources... so Ive more or less stopped putting effort in here.
I have not set up a business web site for the rental business but my sense is that people do not surf the web for things to do while here.
They do look in their "lonely Planet" or "Footprint" guide books, but I aint there ....Yet :)

3) I have tried attending the bikes.
For a month there, I sat with the bikes from 10am till 2pm every day so that I could answer questions immediately when someone asked. Again, this made no difference and I have stopped doing it.

4) I have tried different rental locations.
I have had the bikes parked in three different locations and have found this does matter. I am not yet located where I want to be, so I can still improve this, but it will take time since I need to convince one of a couple of people to let me rent some space on their land and build/renovate a little shelter. This is Guatemala and getting people to "do something" is a slow process.

What Works:
What actually makes people stop and rent?
Well, it seems that the recipe is as follows:
1) The bikes them selves are the biggest factor. About 19 out of 20 rentals come from the place where the bikes are standing during the day. The more bikes and the cleaner and better presented they are the better!
2) Location... Having the bikes in a location where people walk past them all the time (the more people and the more often, the better) is best.
3) Somebody in close proximity (but not necessarily attending the bikes directly) to take first contact and to call me immediately matters. Most tourists dont have cell phones and when they look at the bike and want to know more details, someone needs to be there. So, I have the bikes outside or next to a local business. When people have questions, the business owner answers a few things in Spanish and then calls me. Im never more than five minutes away and I come and do the detailed chat in English ...and thats important since most tourists are far better at English than Spanish... If I had my own space and someone else to help me rent the bikes then they would need to speak English.
4) The street-side Notice boards seem to also matter. Smaller signs on the bikes do not seem to clearly indicate that the tourists should "ask about the bikes here". It seems you need a sign telling them to do so! So, I have one of these with the bikes that gives the basic prices and says "Ask Inside" so it is not business specific.
I have another that I put at a high pedestrian tourist traffic point saying "Bike rentals 100m this way".


And thats about what we know so far!

Deluge

As I think I mentioned, the rainy season has started down here in Guatemala. And it seems that this year the season is opening "con Gusto" which is to say that it has rather dumped down for a few days here (but only in the afternoons - the mornings are lovely and sunny).

It may sound a little strange, but the tooktooks have been reminding me of salmon!

The streets here do not have the usual "crown" profile to shed rain water to the sides and into the gutters as they do where Im from. Here, The road its self is the storm drain system and the road has an inverted "crown" shape with the low point in the middle.
And as Im sure I have mentioned, the roads around here are often very steep.
So, when it rains hard, the main street here in San Pedro becomes a veritable torrent and its quite fun to sit in a coffee shop (they have good coffee here in Gute'...who would have guessed!) on the corner at the bottom of the hill and watch the show as chickens, cats, babies, and small dogs get washed down the hill and into the lake... Very amusing! :)

But, when it rains hard, the tooktooks do a roaring trade carrying people and their remaining pets and babies etc to their homes. Most of the tooktooks are painted bright red (like a spawning salmon) and when they have their customer aboard at the bottom of the hill, they approach the main road up the hill cautiously and linger momentarily at the margins before plunging into the strong current...
Then they plunge on in and the water sprays up in huge plumes (50-100cm) well over the tiny little wheels and it looks like the little fellows will surely lose their grip on the road and be washed away;   But no, They hang on and face directly up stream and the driver revs hard and they struggle frenetically up the hill...

Just like Salmon!
It reminds me of home :)))

Guiding mini-Adventure Tours

I did my first local tour guiding session the other day.

Months ago when I first got a bike here, I went for a ride all over the place to see how far people could get when I decided to rent bikes.
The answer was, "not very far"; There just are not that many roads here, and they are almost all dead ends.
However, I did find a couple of quite seriously steep 4WD roads. I even managed to ride my motorbike up one of them (though Im far from an off-road technical rider). At the top of the really steep dirt road, there was a nice little local village and the road became a straightforward gravel road...and that lead back to the nice paved roads and back to San Pedro.
So I had found a nice little loop route, but it was way too hard for novice riders and for my little rental bikes to even consider riding up.... But maybe they could get "down" it instead!

So then a month or so went by and I was getting to know how to rent bikes etc, and one way and another I didnt do anything about the tours.
But, last week there was a little group of keen tourists who had such a good day out on my rental bikes that they came back and wanted to rent again, but they also wanted some more ideas on where they could ride...So, I hit them with my now polished sales pitch!

And the poor fools agreed to give it a go ;)

And it went very well.
Most of the route is easy enough, but the really steep descent does require some specialist skills that I had to teach them on the spot.
The road is so steep and loose that you need to have both feet paddling on the ground (unless you are a skilled off-road rider)...but the road is also so steep and loose that you cant just use the front brake...the front wheel will just skid out from under you.
But you cant use the rear brake if both feet are paddling on the ground...and so we have a problem!
The solution (learned from riding a super heavy touring bike through treacherously steep and muddy jungle tracks! :))) ) is to switch the engine off and leave it in gear. You then use the right hand on the front brake as usual but you also use the left hand on the clutch as a rear brake (though this hand has to work in the reverse sense to the right hand - squeezing in gives less braking not more).
Its a bit complex, but fortunately, you can go as slow as you want and work it out...which is what we did. None of the clients had any more than absolute basic motorbike skills (that I taught them when they first rented a couple of days before) and they all did fine...It took us about half an hour to get through the tricky section and then it was back to regular riding.

A good time was had by all :)))


So, now I am advertising for mini-Adventure Tours and we'll see how it goes :)